So, Is Your Business An Opossum? - Blue Ocean Strategy

So, Is Your Business An Opossum?

Blue Ocean Strategy is not a one time deal but a continuous process. The moment you stop to innovate and sit back, you will be sucked into the red ocean of cutthroat competition.

Consider an illustration from nature, namely the opossum. The opossum is a strange animal. Its principal line of defense against potential predators is feigning death. While an ingenious and innovative psychological deterrent, this has at least two significant risks if not followed up by subsequent innovations. First, it banks on predators’ tastes not changing over time. But what if a stiff, carcass-like demeanor eventually becomes an appetite enhancer and not suppressant for savage beasts?

Second, the opossum’s ploy can only work as long as other animals of similarly low rank on the food chain don’t decide to imitate it. Because if every creature in the path of some cheetahs or a wolf pack started to mysteriously drop dead, those predators sooner or later would begin to get a tad bit suspicious.